There’s This Thing Called Luck, See

While part of me – the rational, logical part of me – wants to dismiss that luck exists at all – another part of me – the empathetic, humble, kind part of me – cannot. Often, I’ll think: “‘Luck’, that’s just something we use to explain what science hasn’t figured out yet”; or “‘Bad luck’? More like ‘corrupt government’!” Then something either inexplicably bad or good will happen, and I’ll believe again.

Now, I’ve never expected good things to fall from the sky. Luck favours the prepared: if you don’t know how to play the piano, you’ll never be a famous pianist. If you don’t practice and work at it, it won’t happen for you.

And bad luck? Well, you have to have some common sense. If you gamble (the house wins, my friends), you might not have money luck; if you don’t take care of your body, you might have poor health luck. Luck doesn’t trump common sense.

The luck I’m referring to is different: it’s more extreme. Like the woman who wrote the 50 Shades of Grey books – there have been thousands of other writers who’ve written better erotica and been less successful. That woman was born under a lucky star!

So yes, I believe in luck, though my views have shifted. When I was younger, I believed that good luck and bad luck balanced. There may be months where you’d have bad luck, but at some point your luck would turn and there’d be a streak of good luck.

Naive, right?

For many years, I believed luck ebbed and flowed. If you were unlucky, good luck was going to come. If you were very lucky, you should expect some bad luck. I thought there was some equilibrium to it.

There’s not.

It’s possible to be lucky in one area (love) and unlucky in another (health). It’s possible to have decent luck in several areas, but to be particularly lucky or unlucky in one. It’s possible to be lucky all-around (I know a guy like that – he’s lovely, but it’s obnoxious), or unlucky all-around (I could list several examples here, but they’re all depressing, and would destroy your day).

In one area of my life in particular, I have always been especially lucky. In another couple of areas of my life, I have been routinely unlucky. Go figure.

I wish I could say that my good luck area and bad luck area have balanced, but I don’t know that they have. I don’t want to upset my good luck area (God no! I love it! I’m afraid to even mention it now, lest I jinx it), but World: I am ready for my bad luck streak to end.

I suppose the only thing to do is to keep my head down and keep plugging away. That, and maybe turn to the metaphysical, like Feng Shui.